e may have been
disappointed when it was not ready until a quarter after. But it was
worth waiting for if to have a team composed of a brown mule on the
right hand and a gray horse on the left was to be desired. These animals
which nature had so differenced were equalized by art through the lavish
provision of sleigh-bells, without some strands of which no team in
Spain is properly equipped. Besides, as to his size the mule was quite
as large as the horse, and as to his tail he was much more decorative.
About two inches after this member left his body it was closely shaved
for some six inches or more, and for that space it presented the effect
of a rather large size of garden-hose; below, it swept his thighs in a
lordly switch. If anything could have added distinction to our turnout
it would have been the stiff side-whiskers of our driver: the only pair
I saw in real life after seeing them so long in pictures on boxes of
raisins and cigars. There they were associated with the look and
dress of a _torrero,_ and our coachman, though an old Castilian of the
austerest and most taciturn pattern, may have been in his gay youth an
Andalusian bull-fighter.

IV

Our pride in our equipage soon gave way to our interest in the market
for sheep, cattle, horses, and donkeys which we passed through just
outside the city. The market folk were feeling the morning's cold;
shepherds folded in their heavy shawls leaned motionless on their long
staves, as if hating to stir; one ingenious boy wore a live lamb round
his neck which he held close by the legs for the greater comfort of it;
under the trees by the roadside some of the peasants were cooking their
breakfasts and warming themselves at the fires. The sun was on duty in
a cloudless sky; but all along the road to the Cartuja we drove between
rows of trees so thickly planted against his summer rage that no ray of
his friendly heat could now reach us. At times it seemed as if from this
remorselessly shaded avenue we should escape into the open; the trees
gave way and we caught glimpses of wide plains and distant hills; then
they closed upon us again, and in their chill shadow it was no comfort
to know that in summer, when the townspeople got through their work,
they came out to these groves, men, women, and children, and had supper
under their hospitable boughs.

One comes to almost any Cartuja at last, and we found ours on a sunny
top just when the cold had pinched us almost bey